Bruce D Given,
Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, USA
Title: Hepatitis B in focus: New biology, new targets and real hope for finite therapy
Biography
Biography: Bruce D Given,
Abstract
Drug development work in chronic Hepatits B (CHB) has been largely stagnant for the last decade or more. While solid epidemiology work has demonstrated that seroclearance of HbsAg (functional cure) is associated with greatly reduced risk of cirrhosis or HCC, neither interferon therapy nor long-term nucleos(t)ide therapy are associated with meaningful rates of functional cure. With the recent successes achieved in curative treatment of Hepatitis C, the field has returned to curative efforts in CHB and there has been an explosion of pre-clinical drug development against novel targets. As part of this process, new insights have been gained regarding the biology of CHB. This talk will focus on how these new biological insights are translating into new drug discovery efforts, how these new drug classes are performing in the clinic, and the expected role for combining these drugs to achieve meaningful rates of functional cure with finite therapy.